The One Simple Phrase That Transformed My Life
These 12 words have never steered me wrong
In the spring of 2013, I made the decision to turn my life into an experiment. For almost a year, I hadn’t been able to find enough work to sustain me. I didn’t have enough money for both my food and Hedda’s (my then-cat), so I bartered with a local coffee shop for breakfast and lunch. My one pair of overalls had been patched in the thighs three times; my two shirts were literally threadbare, and I’d just gone through a winter with leaky boots, from which my right toenails have never recovered.
Over the previous year, I’d sent out more than 200 resumes, gone to job fairs, completed online surveys, searched FlexJobs, and even had an appointment with a counselor at an agency called “Supporting Employment Transitions.” I would gladly have held road signs at construction sites, but the required safety course cost $300. The only “temp” agency at the time required bring-your-own hard hat and steel-toed boots.
Out of options, I decided to take an Eckhart Tolle phrase I loved—”If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place”—and see if it was true. From then on, I’ve lived my life inside-out, which is far more peaceful than the other way around.
Every spiritual teaching points to this
I’ve written before that all spiritual teachings come down to one core experience, whether you call it “loving what is” (Byron Katie), “radical acceptance” (Tara Brach) or even “the Vortex” (Abraham-Hicks). These are all pointers to the same experience of surrender. In turn, that experience of surrender is a portal to transformation.
Getting the inside right means taking full responsibility for our lives and finding ways to feel peace regardless of our circumstances or what’s happening around us. Buddhists call this equanimity; Christians call it ‘the peace that passes all understanding’. I’m sure other spiritual traditions have language for this state, too.
12-step programs recognize this essential truth: If we focus on ourselves and how we’re showing up in the world; if we’re accountable to ourselves and others and take full responsibility for our lives (including healing our wounds)… then everything else will work out. It might not work out the way we’d like, but if we’re truly in a place of surrender, we don’t need things to go our way.
Getting the inside right is the experience of understanding ourselves as part of a living system—the universe—rather than either dependent on or superior to “the universe.” There is no separation between us and the universe.
Relax, nothing’s under control
As part of the universe, we are part of a natural system that has central organizing principles and its own unfolding, including for us. We love to think we’re in control of what happens, but for the most part, we’re not.
We think we need human intervention for our lives to unfold, when in fact, I’ve learned that the more I let go, the more smoothly things work out.
It’s counterintuitive for those of us raised in high-achieving or academic families. Yet when I’ve been in a place of full surrender, that’s when miracles happen—by which I mean ‘statistically improbable events that logic can’t explain.’ Like finding a $20 on the sidewalk after I gave my last dollar to a homeless person. Like getting an offer for lucrative work out of the blue a week after I’d stopped trying so damned hard. Like a restauranteur running across a parking lot to hand me a leftover baguette after I’d let someone go ahead of me in line.
How surrender contributes to inner peace
There are aspects of each of us—mostly our conditioning—that strengthen themselves through our stories about what’s wrong and bad, and how we’re right, and the situation is wrong, etc. We think we’re using our critical-thinking faculties when instead, we’re being relentlessly critical.
That’s not inner peace; that’s misery-making. And it’s really easy to create dozens-to-hundreds of stories about why a given situation is so wrong and why (again, as Tolle says) I am morally superior to this moment. Doing this increases our inner pain, our overthinking and our sense of separation from all living things.
In order for a situation to change, we first have to accept that it exists—and by “accept” I mean “make total peace.” Not a grudging “Ugh, okayyyyyy… I guess” delivered with an eye roll and a heavy sigh… though I assure you, I am well acquainted with that approach, too. We don’t have to like what is; we don’t have to accept that it will always be so. Acceptance doesn’t even mean passivity. Take action, by all means, but only after you’ve found a place of acceptance.
Action taken from a place of (inside-right) surrender is far more powerful than all the random doing-pasta we can throw at a problem. When we’re in a place of surrender, our energy is aligned with nature—the living system of which we’re part—and nature can work through us, often in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
What ‘getting the inside right’ looks like
Essentially, this means ‘acceptance of what is.’ For me, this means focusing on actions (or inactions!) that contribute to feeling grounded and accepted. In spring through fall, that often means heading to Saysutshun and allowing the forest to clear my mind (rather than TRYING TO FEEL PEACE, DAMMIT!)
When you’ve gotten the inside right, you’ll feel a sense of relief, of relaxation, even though your external situation may not have changed. It helps (a lot) to practice this when things are going relatively well, because then you’re building muscle memory for navigating life’s inevitable upheavals. (Though if you’re anything like me, you’ll wait until life forces you into a very painful corner before you’ll surrender.)
You’ll know you’re in a place of allowing when you have a deep feeling of knowing that no matter the outcome, on the razor’s edge of this moment, all is well, even if it doesn’t seem like it to our limited human brains.
Getting the inside right feels better—though at first, it may feel uncomfortable, as your conditioning pushes back to strengthen your sense of separation and being wronged. Keep looking not for what makes you “happy” but for what releases the tension you’re holding in your body.
How to find what gets your inside right
I’ve found that coming into fierce presence helps me to surrender, because it briefly pauses all thought, which allows wisdom to bubble up. You can also use these different techniques for coming into presence, alongside what you discover below.
You probably already have an instinct about what will bring you into alignment and peace. (Pro tip: It’s not social media, Netflix or doomscrolling) For most people, it’s something they enjoy—an activity like walking or kayaking, or a specific type of nature. What comes up for you when you think about places (local to you) that bring you peace?
For me, it’s Saysutshun. For another person, it might be a beach at the ocean or a forested lake, a roaring creek, or visiting a farm with horses. If you don’t have access to nature, it could be going to a museum or gallery, or even meditating on a plant or painting. This allows us to become attuned to our deeper reality as expressions of nature, rather than separate from it. We can recalibrate by immersing ourselves in the type of nature that calls to us.
For those of us who live in cities, nature is largely ornamental and landscaped—that is, designed by thought and concept. This reduction in nature reinforces the idea that humans are in charge of the world, that we’re in control and the thinking mind is the most important tool we have. (It is a tool, and an effective one at times, but it’s the wrong tool for finding meaning or inner peace.) This, too, leads to painful rumination and a belief that we can think ourselves out of pain.
I’ve been through some significant challenges, and whenever I feel knocked off center, I’ve found getting the inside right to be the spiritual medicine I need.
If you set out to ‘get the inside right,’ please let me know in the comments what you did and how it felt.
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